CENTER FOR BUSINESS
AS AN AGENT OF WORLD BENEFIT

Among the many rural businesses of post-communist Russia, ALVI Inc. offers a new model of self-reliance and sustainable development. By aligning community interest and business interest, the company has successfully grown into a multi-product organization with high productivity levels and a flourishing community.

Bamboo Hardwoods, founded in 1990, operates a successful and environmentally sustainable company that is working to slow the degradation of natural resources. By using bamboo (which is a grass) as an alternative source material for flooring, the company has demonstrated that deforestation of traditional hardwoods can be prevented. The company values its relationships with employees and suppliers, and actively promotes their well being.

In 2005, Mohawk Paper Mills purchased windpower for its newly acquired Beckett Mill in Hamilton, Ohio, making Mohawk the 2nd largest industrial consumer of windpower in the U.S. The family-owned paper manufacturer plans to use 45 million kilowatt hours of pollution-free wind power annually to run its two mills in New York and the new facility in Ohio. The company is the only paper mill in the U.S. to use wind energy to manufacture paper.

Scrapile is a furniture company that has created its business model based on the principles of reuse, rediscover, and re-purpose. Wood that is ‘waste’ for other companies is the raw material for scrapile furniture. This has helped in arresting the flow of discarded wood into the landfills while generating innovative products. This benefits Scrapile by allowing them to procure raw materials free of cost for manufacturing furniture, while clients gian from reducing their garbage bill by donating the scrap, and the environment id better off by decreased dumping of waste wood in the landfills.